GAITSKELL By Jack Gale. Part one: The Man the Tories loved

Ten years ago today—on January 18, 1963-Hugh Todd - Naylor Gaitskell died in a Middlesex hospital in a room previously occupied by Winston Churchill.

All over Britain, flags were flown at half-mast—a privilege usually reserved for heads of state or royalty.

In parliament, after fulsome tributes from Tory premier Harold Macmillan, George Brown declared from the Labour benches that Gaitskell had been responsible for 'a new approach, a new method' on the part of the Labour Who was Hugh Gaitskell and what were his 'achievements'?

The son of a British civil servant in Burma, Gaitskell attended the Dragon School at Oxford--one of the most exclusive and expensive preparatory schools in the land. From there he went on to Winchester, one of the top public schools, where two of contemporaries were Richard Crossman and Douglas Jay.

He graduated at New College, Oxford, and in 1934 he went to Vienna under a Rockefeller grant for economic study. One of his close companions there was Kim Philby —who, in 1963, turned out to have been a Russian agent along with Burgess and Maclean.

Elected Labour MP for south-east Leeds in 1945, Gaitskell became parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Fuel and Power in 1946, became Minister himself in 1947, was placed in charge of the Treasury in 1949, appointed Minister of State for Economic Affairs in 1950, and Chancellor of the Exchequer the same year.

He leader Parliamentary Labour Party in December 1955, receiving 157 votes against 70 for Aneurin Bevan and 40 for Herbert Morrison.

A successful personal career. But what were his achievements for the labour moveHis one and only budget, in April 1951, was based on what he called 'the clash between Soviet imperialism and the parliamentary democracies'.

The previous year he had fully supported the American war of aggression in Korea and advocated 50-per-cent increase in military expenditure.

In his budget he insisted on a ceiling rise of £50m in the National Health Servicewhich, with rising costs, amounted to a fundamental attack on the service. In addition, he imposed charges amounting to £13m on spectacles and dental treatment in order to finance an arms budget of £4,700m brought about mainly by the Korean war, as well as by continued colonial aggression in Malaya, which Gaitskell fully supported.

Within three months the trade gap had widened to £500m, gold and dollar reserves were dwindling rapidly-and Gaitskell's proposal for dealing with this was to call for a "postponement' of wage claims.

This right-wing stance split the Labour Party. Bevan, Harold Wilson and John Freeman resigned over the health service cuts.

In 1949, when in charge of the Treasury, Gaitskell had visited the 1 United States to appeal for more steel from America to assist the British economy. American newspapers at the time reported that Gaitskell had been told that the American government would help out, but that they were concerned at the 'Welshman' in the Labour Cabinet. majority going up from 17 to 58. At the ensuing party conference, Gaitskell launched his open attack on Clause 4-the conse hat calls for nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

The constitution, he declared, needed "bringing up to date'. One month after being elected party leader he attacked the 'stale slogans' of nationalization.

At the 1957 conference he again attacked nationalization, declaring 'we are evolutionists, not revolutionists'.

On the eve of the 1959 conference-after he had led the Labour Party to its third successive disastrous defeat, giving the Tories a majority of 107- -he continued his course to the right.

This time he declared publicly: "We do not intend, any of us, to implement Clause 4 fully, and I regard it as my duty to say to the party and the country?

At the conference he said: 'Clause 4 cannot possibly be regarded as adequate and it lays us open to continual misrepresentation' Gaitskell was not able, however, push through the dropping of Clause 4. Opposition throughout the party ranks was enormous with a "Defend Clause 4' campaign being launched.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

January